"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." Orwell

"Men are so simple of mind and so dominated by immediate needs that the deceitful man can easily find those ready to be deceived."
Machiavelli

"The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.." H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Brexit = Trump

My latest newspaper column:

I’m not economically erudite enough to predict the long-term
implications of Brexit on markets and pocketbooks, but I’m not reassured when
Donald Trump, who as recently as six weeks ago had no idea what it is, says it
should have no effect on the US. The man focuses on issues like a laser. In
terms of breadth and depth, that is. (He beamed that it’ll help his golf course,
though, as he was otherwise embarrassing himself over misreading the Scottish
vote.) Nevertheless, I can’t see how the potential breakup of the EU could be a
good thing, either for world economies or, importantly, for security. Why, one
wonders, is Trump’s second most favorite tyrant, V. Putin, so happy about it?
Might it be the possibility that NATO will collapse? Did Mr. Trump even
consider that before he spoke? I’m guessing not.

Still, what concerns me most about the UK leaving the EU is
the way it reflects the gormless, paranoid, nationalistic, xenophobic fury that
is Trumpism in our country. Sayeth the savant of the snowdrifts, the vapor of vacationland,
Sarah the superficial, who, for reasons inexplicable, is still regarded as
credible by many: the UK “avoided apocalyptic one-world government.” And there
you have it. Delusional ignorance, fuelling a movement more dangerous than the
peril it thinks it sees.

Donald Trump, fabulous businessman, that I can tell you, has
left bankruptcies and never-built projects around the planet, scamming charmed
investors, most of whom couldn’t afford it, yet always managing to enrich
himself. Recent analyses of his economic proposals, one by Moody’s, another by
the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, found that if enacted they’d
increase our national debt by more than twelve trillion dollars, give or take,
while creating deep and lengthy recession. Doesn’t
matter.

I find those facts vitally important in
considering a Trump presidency. On his supporters, though, there’s no impact:
not from his shoot-from-the-hair inanities, his lack of understanding of
issues, his walking-back or denying or flipping what he just said, and
certainly not the fact that his career is filled with frauds, failures, falsity,
and filings, while profiting from the misery of others. Irrelevant. Because in
Donald Trump people see themselves getting even; they see the slaying of those
monsters in Sarah Palin’s hallucinations. There’s a lot they’re against, but
they’re FOR very little. To them, facts don’t enter into the equation, no more
than for Trump. He’s the dark mirror in which they see reflected the face of
their bitterness, grinning its approval.

And that, it seems, is primarily what was
behind the Brexit vote. Other than getting rid of immigrants, and rules
imagined to be enslaving them, citizens had no clue what they were voting for.
Over four million exit-voters, shocked awake, are now demanding a revote.
Google searches from the UK for “what is the EU” have surged,
ex-post-barn-dooro. Like American Trumpits, Brits bought false promises and
stoking of grievances, neither caring nor bothering to learn what was at stake.
All they needed to know is that they’re bloody angry and frustrated.

After the Brexit vote there’s been a spike in
hate crimes over there. In Seattle, a transgender man was recently beaten at a
rally in support of Orlando victims. Sacramento, shortly thereafter, saw the
stabbing of several people at a white power event. In the ultimate expression
of Brexotrumpism, Texas secessionists are ululating yet again. (Let ‘em go.
Build a wall, with checkpoints; require passports and background checks for entry.
Void government and private contracts, remove the military bases. It’d be the
“Oh, sh… ucks” heard ‘round the world.) Legitimized by a Trump win, as Brexit
evidently did, who can believe this human wave of inchoate, violent resentment
won’t get even worse?

The human mind, with its adoration of war,
fear of “the other,” magical thinking, tribalism, quickness to paranoia, has
finally created problems too big for it to handle, scraping against the limits
of its ability to cope. As a species, we’re going into tilt mode, seeking easy
and cheap answers, justifying denial of reality. In formless anger and frustration,
we’re looking for scapegoats instead of solutions, inculpation instead of
illumination. Thus, Brexit. Thus, Donald Trump.

For The Sake of My Sanity

Some will know me from my other blog, "Surgeonsblog." Of late I've given over to frothing at the mouth as the world descends into stupidity, and our politics and our citizens seem, in numbers enough to be meaningful, unable to see it. So for now I'm leaving surgery writing behind, if for no other reason than to defuse and diffuse my unrelenting sense of doom, and with no expectation of making a difference. These are things that, to me, are obvious. Except that, apparently, they aren't.

RWS™

RWS™: For those who drop by here in the middle, and wonder what it means: it's my shorthand for Right Wing Screamers, which includes such a long list it's tiresome to type it. (I distinguish these blowhards from thoughtful conservatives, of whom I sort of take it on faith that there must still be some.) You know who I mean: Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Breitbart (RIP), Malkin, Savage, Levin, Ingraham, Doocey (more of a drooler than a screamer), Hewitt, Goldberg, Gingrich, Kristol, Scarborough (+/-), Bachmann, Inhofe, Bond, Broun, Boehner, Kelley, Santorum, Cain. To name but a few. Behold them in their unrepentant disregard for reality: the RWS™